I just returned from another trip to Tennessee where I was able to catch up with a few folks from the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga and see how things were developing. The conversations there had shifted quite a bit from earlier in the year when the vote regarding UAW unionization was raging, and recent reports make it clear that the big auto union isn’t going to be content with licking their wounds from their recent loss. As Ed reported back in April, the UAW had withdrawn their request for a hearing before the National Labor Relations Board, which some saw as a sign that the fight was pretty much over.

But from what I was hearing, union organizers weren’t looking at things that way at all. There was talk of going ahead and forming an “informal” bargaining unit anyway. And now it looks like they are making it officially unofficial.

Five months after the United Auto Workers (UAW) failed in its bid to unionize Volkswagens Chattanooga, Tenn., manufacturing plant, the union is giving it another go. But this time, theyre not bothering with the traditional election route.

Instead of calling on the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to administer an election, the UAW has decided to form a voluntary association called Local 42. At least initially, the group will not collectively bargain on behalf of the plants whole workforce, and it will not collect dues. Yet if a majority of the plants employees agree to join Local 42, there is a chance that Volkswagen will recognize it as the workers exclusive bargaining agent, granting it full union privileges without the need for an election.

When the union shows up at your home for a friendly chat along with seeing your spouse and kids, most will sign. Elections are so yesteryear for the collective. For the few who won’t sign, they will either be irrelevant or worse. The company will not protect them. Their European operations are comanaged and they support unionization.

When the union shows up at your home for a friendly chat along with seeing your spouse and kids, most will sign.

Maybe,but I doubt it. While I don't discount union thuggery, face it, non-government unions are in free-fall. Unions without the ability to force dues deductions from paychecks just ain't got it any more.

I’ll bet “informal” organizations aren’t subject to any of the (barely enforced) laws that would pretend to restrict a normal union. So anyone on the receiving end will have little recourse against them.

VW deserves everything the UAW throws at them. VW is a pro-union German corporation, It essentially did nothing to defeat the union in the election, and has demonstrated it is more than willing to have a union at this plant despite what its workers want.

In my experience as a business consultant, German companies like to work with unions. However, they are not pushovers like the US auto industry. They are extremely well organized in how they do business and expect the same from union members.

Very misleading headline, I’m afraid. The union “exists” whether the company is required (normally as the result of a secret ballot election, but sometimes as a result of an employer (upon seeing that a large number of employees have signed cards) recognizing the union as its employees exclusive bargaining agent). The only issue is the company’s duty to bargain with whatever group claims to represent the majority of its employees.

As far as card check goes, my fairly extensive experience is that employees are invariably told by the organizers that their signature is only for the purpose of demanding an election (”after all, that’s the American way -— put it up to an election ...”) and do so despite the fact that the cards also say the union can use the cards to demand recognition without an election. Most employees are then SHOCKED when the union demands recognition on the basis of signed cards and somewhat grateful when the company rejects the demand and insists on a secret ballot election.

19
posted on 07/12/2014 12:55:59 PM PDT
by Vesparado
(The American people know what they want and they deserve to get it good and hard --- HL Mencken)

Tennessee is a right to work and lots of people have a dislike for them. My dad worked 45 years in telecommunications and never joined. UAW would do well to remember the Boeing plant in Oak Ridge. They won their long strike and Boeing closed the plant and relocated within a couple of years. Yea the union sure showed them.

20
posted on 07/12/2014 12:56:04 PM PDT
by cva66snipe
((Two Choices left for U.S. One Nation Under GOD or One Nation Under Judgment? Which one say ye?))

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